Yueh Alex Lu

—'Painting is an illusion. Modernist painting is flat but as soon as you put a mark on a canvas, space is generated. As soon as a mark is made, the space is activated. One can perceive depth. In leaving raw, untouched surface, there is a relationship between what is there and what is not there'.

—Ropes are a repetitive theme in his paintings and they are a tool for illusion, one that creates movement. 'It’s like bonsai. The Chinese monks would meditate on the mountainsides and see the trees that grew curved and bent off cliffs. They thought it was very beautiful, like magic. So they began to grow trees and bind them with rope to grow a certain way. It’s about restraint as a form of creation, but also about ego in a way. Human beings are creators of nature. ‘Oh look, I can mimic nature, I can control it in a way.’
Interviewed by Workingclass.

Born in Taiwan, Yueh Alex Lu has a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and another MFA from School of Visual Arts in progress.